Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 429 Catching the Thief

When the camera captured him entering the fifth tent, Xu Xiaoyan turned to Lan Yue and said, "You can go and arrest him now. I'll be filming the whole thing, so the evidence won't get away."

If you can't handle it by yourself, just shout and I'll come to your aid immediately.

Blue Moon leaned against the pine tree trunk, arms crossed, staring intently at the back of the man in the gray jacket.

Hearing Xu Xiaoyan's words, she slowly straightened up, pulled the scarf off her face, revealing her face, which was already slightly flushed.

She flexed her fingers, her knuckles making a series of crisp "crack" sounds. Then she tilted her head and twisted her neck to the left and right, her cervical spine making the same crisp sound.

"Don't worry, I can do it." Her voice wasn't loud, but each word seemed to be squeezed out from between her teeth, carrying a chillingly fierce edge.

"I won't be satisfied until I beat him to a pulp."

Before she finished speaking, she had already rushed out.

Xu Xiaoyan steadily pointed the camera at her back.

On the screen, Lan Yue's figure moved rapidly in the morning light. She rushed through the narrow gap between two tents, bypassed a pile of scattered firewood, and headed straight for the tent where the man was.

The man in the gray jacket was just coming out of the tent.

One hand was still clutching something he had just pulled out of there—an unopened bag of instant noodles—while the other hand was pulling the zipper of the tent.

He heard hurried footsteps and subconsciously looked up. Before he could see who it was, Lan Yue grabbed his collar.

"You motherfucker—" The man only managed to utter two words.

Lan Yue suddenly yanked him hard, and he stumbled forward two steps, the instant noodles in his hand flying out and landing on the muddy ground with a thud.

Before he could react, Lan Yue swung her other hand and punched him squarely on the shoulder.

The man winced in pain, letting out a muffled groan, and instinctively tried to shrink back, but Lan Yue still held his collar tightly, making him feel as if he were nailed to the ground and unable to break free.

Only then did he see who had hit him: a woman with disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes, exuding a reckless madness.

"Thief, it must have been you who stole my sleeping bag!" Blue Moon's voice was sharp and angry.

The man finally realized what was happening, and with a strong effort, he pulled his collar out of Lan Yue's grasp, staggering back two steps.

He neither denied nor admitted it; he simply instinctively raised his hands to cover his face.

He was mumbling something incoherently, something like "You've mistaken me for someone else" or "Why are you hitting me?"

But Lan Yue didn't give him a chance to finish speaking before pouncing on him again.

The two started fighting. The man was half a head taller than Lan Yue and had thicker arms, but he clearly didn't have Lan Yue's ruthless, all-or-nothing spirit.

Lan Yue seemed completely disregarding the possibility of injury, using her fists, knees, and even her head as weapons, relentlessly attacking her opponent.

The man initially tried to fight back, but Lan Yue punched him in the nose, making his eyes water. He immediately lost his will to fight and instinctively began to retreat, dodge, and run away.

Blue Moon chased after him, and the two of them leaped around the camp one after the other.

The man in the gray jacket covered his head, hunched over, dodging and weaving, skirting tents, stepping over backpacks, and wading into puddles. Blue Moon chased after him, her steps quick and fierce, cursing incessantly.

"Run! Run again! Why didn't you run when you were stealing? Why didn't you run when you were ransacking my tent?!"

The man was so exhausted from being chased that he slipped and fell face-first onto a tent rope, causing the tent to tilt to one side.

He struggled to his feet, but before he could even stand up straight, Lan Yue arrived and kicked him in the thigh, causing him to stumble again.

The man's groans grew louder and louder, turning from muffled groans into screams of agony: "Help! Help! He's hitting me! He's hitting me!"

The noise finally alerted the people nearby. First, a middle-aged woman who had just returned to the camp was stunned when she saw the mess in the camp and the two figures wrestling together.

Immediately afterwards, several people who were logging were also alerted and rushed out.

In less than two minutes, seven or eight people surrounded them from all directions, some of them holding axes. Their expressions changed from confusion to surprise, and then to bewilderment.

They stood three or four meters away, forming an irregular semicircle, watching the sudden "fight" unfold in the camp, and for a moment no one knew who to help.

Help that man? But he was a stranger, and he was wearing a gray jacket with bulging pockets; he didn't look like a decent person at all.

Help that woman? Although she was chasing after others and hitting them, her aggressive demeanor and constant shouts of "stealing sleeping bags" and "flipping tents" seemed to suggest that she was the victim.

Someone in the crowd muttered, "Who's that guy? Which group is he in? I've never seen him before."

Some people tried to break up the fight, but when they saw Lan Yue's murderous look, they withdrew their feet.

He just shouted from afar, "Hey, hey, stop fighting! Stop fighting! Let's talk this out!"

But nobody listened to him.

Blue Moon was still chasing, and the man was still running. Xu Xiaoyan held up her phone not far away, the camera steadily following the two figures, dutifully recording everything.

In the distance, the sound of hurried footsteps and a chorus of questions echoed along the mountain path: "What's going on over there?" "Who's fighting?" "I heard they caught a thief?"

The news spread like wildfire through the forests and hilltops.

In no time, about twenty people arrived from other mountain encampments, from the direction of the trading point, and even from the logging camp halfway up the mountain.

Some of them jogged along, panting heavily; others were still carrying tools, axes and saws still in their hands.

Some were just there to watch the excitement, hands in their pockets, walking at a leisurely pace, but the excitement in their eyes was impossible to hide.

These people quickly surrounded the camp in layers, and new onlookers squeezed into the crowd, tiptoeing to look inside, constantly asking, "What's going on? What's going on?"

The seven or eight people who arrived early busied themselves acting as guides, piecing together the gist of the matter with their own opinions.

It seems that the man in the gray jacket stole the woman's sleeping bag and rummaged through several tents. He was caught red-handed and is now being chased all over the campsite.

"Serves you right!" someone spat on the spot.

"This kind of person just needs to be taught a lesson," another voice coldly echoed.

Most of the crowd's attention was focused on the ongoing chase in the center of the camp, but a few people noticed Xu Xiaoyan standing motionless on the periphery, holding her phone.